iCub is a robot platform; the intent is to explore the development of human-style cognition. Exploration techniques are an essential feature of human development, as anyone who raised a child knows.
(iCub crawling robot baby video)
iCub is defintely a step forward from earlier robot babies; take a look at M3-neoni:
SF fans recall the robot child portrayed by Haley Joel Osment in Steven Spielberg's AI (from Brian Aldiss' excellent 1969 short story Super-Toys Last All Summer Long). I don't think he crawled, though.
Humanoid Robots Tickle The Ivories
'The massive feet working the pedals, arms and hands flashing and glinting...' - Herbert Goldstone, 1953.
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MIT Computerized Bionic Leg Is Part Of The User
'The leg was to function, in a way, as a servo-mechanism operated by Larry’s brain, through the mediation of the electronic brain in the leg.'